wix toolset - How to make Directories permanent? - wix

My installer requires that I create some folders that cannot be uninstalled. Is there a way to make directories as permanent just like components?
For an empty folder, I am using below code and worked out successfully :-
<Directory Id="dir04517D319ACA03A67ABEF6DCD0061557" Name="paperworks">
<Component Id="cmpC9B5254FDBE0CC06C0A860BF1CAE69E0" Guid="{A23C24A1-7FE5-4908-9739-AEBE3BCC7109}" KeyPath="yes" Permanent="yes">
<CreateFolder />
</Component>
</Directory>
However, for a directory with files in it, how do I make that folder permanent?

Related

How can I include a dynamic file in .msi in a Wix setup project?

In my project user needs to place .lic file in the target location under License folder. However, each time before an install executed, a new .lic file with a name of Guid created. So, this newly generated .lic file has to be existed in the target install folder in order to be executed. So, how can I include this newly generated.lic file with its new name in .wxs?
In the code below, .lic files are placed statically.
<Directory Id="dir2DD9EA0D815007578196EFA27F567092" Name="Licenses">`enter code here`
<Directory Id="dirD6EBD685D90950A0F304F5EFBC293201" Name="Devices">
<Component Id="cmp1BA173B1588EF11B24651E2C57684F41" Guid="{0AC7B82B-E85A-42B8-8156-3A435DEF7868}">
<File Id="fil1AD590AF499331F0C3BF14DC51B62411" KeyPath="yes" Source="$(var.GatewayPath)\Licenses\Devices\{7e173bee-e914-4a07-8500-595ee9757047}.lic" />
</Component>
<Component Id="cmpB1DF42E330453DC4C24E213ED65887EC" Guid="{6B6F5A3E-3DD4-46AB-A35B-E5B0E784756F}">
<File Id="fil61099F899D843C9EC784909DF6C50A19" KeyPath="yes" Source="$(var.GatewayPath)\Licenses\Devices\{b16e6bfc-c8fb-45b1-be2f-e949446d5415}.lic" />
</Component>
</Directory>
</Directory>
I have solved my problem as below.
<Directory Id="dirD6EBD685D90950A0F304F5EFBC293201" Name="Devices">
<Component Id="CopyLicensesComponent" Guid="A7C42303-1D77-4C70-8D5C-0FD0F9158EB4" >
<CopyFile Id="LicenseFileCopy" SourceProperty="SOURCEDIRECTORY" DestinationDirectory="dirD6EBD685D90950A0F304F5EFBC293201" SourceName="*.lic" />
</Component>
</Directory>

How do I remove files and Folders from ProgramData Folder on Uninstall

Hi there I am having a problem getting my Wix installer to remove elements on Uninstall. The problem folders and files are located on our corporate specified programdata folder 'D:\programdata'. The folders get created OK, however will not remove on Uninstall. The folder structure is as follows
D:\programdata
Company Name
App Name
Logs
QueryOutput
The following is an excerpt from the relevant section of the product.wxs file:
<Directory Id="TARGETDIR" Name="SourceDir">
<Directory Id="CommonAppDataFolder" Name="CommonAppData" >
<Directory Id="dirCompanyAppData" Name="Company Name">
<Directory Id="dirAppNameAppData" Name="AppName">
<Component Id="cmpDirCommonAppData" Guid="{F808944A-D898-43F3-BA1D-A35A3FD7DF41}" KeyPath="yes">
<CreateFolder Directory="dirAppNameAppData" />
<RemoveFile Id="PurgeAppName" Name="*.*" On="uninstall" />
<RemoveFolder Id="idDirAppNameAppData" On="uninstall" Directory="dirAppNameAppData" />
</Component>
</Directory>
<Component Id="cmpDirCompanyName" Guid="{A1E7E75A-D582-40C5-BD6B-D36BFB11795E}" KeyPath="yes">
<RemoveFile Id="PurgeCompanyName" Name="*.*" On="uninstall" />
<RemoveFolder Id="idDirCompanName" On="uninstall" Directory="dirCompanyNameAppData" />
</Component>
</Directory>
</Directory>
<Directory Id="ProgramFilesFolder">
... etc
Note company and application identifying elements have been replaced in the code. I have left out the remainder of the wxs file for brevity and because I believe the relevent code is included in this extract. Any assistance much appreciated, this has me stumped.
Kind Regards
Paul J.
From RemoveFolder definition:
Remove an empty folder if the parent component is selected for installation or removal.
In your case the AppData folder probably has user specific configuration in it like it is supposed to.
I think all the component planning is done first, then executed. So, RemoveFile will plan all the files in that folder to be removed and RemoveFolder will decide it shouldn't delete the folder because at the time of planning, the folder still has stuff in it that is not part of the installation included components and therefore not empty.
You will need to use util:RemoveFolderEx. Again there is another caveat to using this.
Because it might dramatically affect Windows Installer's File Costing, the temporary rows must be written before the CostInitialize standard action. Unfortunately, MSI doesn't create properties for the Directory hierarchy in your package until later, in the CostFinalize action.
So you need to manually set a directory based off of a property you probably read from the registry before the WixRemoveFoldersEx action which I think is scheduled just before CostInitialize.

Why are logs left after removal of an application has occurred?

I am struggling against the issue with wix toolset: why after I uninstall an application some folders including the "logs" are not deleted? is it a bug or not?
<Directory Id="logs" Name="logs">
<Component Id="logs" Guid="0A4D0A3F-2E0D-1B1A-1C6D-1A0F8FAAABC6" Win64="$(var.is64)">
<CreateFolder Directory="logs">
<Permission GenericAll="yes" User="Everyone" />
</CreateFolder>
<RemoveFolder Id="logs" On="uninstall"></RemoveFolder>
</Component>
</Directory>
Sometimes if the application you install generates files or folders after the installation, that can prevent WiX from removing the parent folder during uninstall.
If there are log files created after install, you can purge them by adding this to your existing component:
<RemoveFile Id="RemoveLogFiles" Name="*.*" On="uninstall" />
If your application also creates subdirectories and RemoveFile doesn't get rid of them, I would look into using RemoveFolderEx(http://wixtoolset.org/documentation/manual/v3/xsd/util/removefolderex.html). This would require you to to create a Property and write the directory path to a place in the registry so you can set the Property before RemoveFolderEx runs. You can't just use the Directory Id because RemoveFileEx runs before the MSI creates the Directory properties. Read the link I provided if my explanation didn't make sense to you.
Hope this helps!

WIX deploy two assemblies to GAC

Using WIX, and trying to install two of the same assemblies, one for .Net35 and the other .Net40. I am using two separate components, however WIX is preventing the project from compiling.
<Directory Id="GAC40" Name="GAC">
<Component Id="MyDllServicesModuleGac40Component" Guid="307675AA-8AEC-473B-A78A-FB362CCEDE2A" Win64="yes">
<File Id="MyDllNet40DllGac" Name="MyDll.dll" KeyPath="yes" Assembly=".net" Source="..\MyDll\bin\Net40\MyDll.dll" />
</Component>
</Directory>
<Directory Id="GAC35" Name="GAC">
<Component Id="MyDllServicesModuleGac35Component" Guid="47E6BD1B-25CD-466D-945E-06DCF0F2A269" Win64="yes">
<File Id="MyDllNet35DllGac" Name="MyDll.dll" KeyPath="yes" Assembly=".net" Source="..\MyDll\bin\Net35\MyDll.dll" />
</Component>
</Directory>
The error I receive is:
Error 29 ICE30: The target file 'MyDll.dll' is installed in '[TARGETDIR]\GAC\' by two different components on an SFN system: 'MyDllServicesModuleGac40Component.DDD7D974_FE9C_4BA3_BDD3_A1A3A23F8057' and 'MyDllServicesModuleGac35Component.DDD7D974_FE9C_4BA3_BDD3_A1A3A23F8057'. This breaks component reference counting. D:\PROJECTS\MyDll.Experimental.3.0.0\Project\MyDll\MyDll.Wix.Services\MergeModule.wxs 34 1 MyDll.Wix.Services
The installer should be able to detect that the .Net35 dll gets installed to the GAC at C:\Windows\assembly, while the .Net40 dll gets installed to the GAC at C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\assembly.
Renaming the DLLs is not an option.
Thanks!
UPDATE
Naturally I came up with a solution just after posting, seem wrapping the components in additional elements allowed me to get this to work. Later I read Tom Blodget's post so that is correct.
<Directory Id="GAC1" Name="GAC">
<Directory Id="GAC40" Name="GAC">
<Component Id="MyDllServicesModuleGac40Component" Guid="307675AA-8AEC-473B-A78A-FB362CCEDE2A" Win64="yes">
<File Id="MyDllNet40DllGac" Name="MyDll.dll" KeyPath="yes" Assembly=".net" Source="..\MyDll\bin\Net40\MyDll.dll" />
</Component>
</Directory>
</Directory>
<Directory Id="GAC2">
<Directory Id="GAC35" Name="GAC">
<Component Id="MyDllServicesModuleGac35Component" Guid="FD74504A-6FE9-488E-9086-9DAD3024B35D" Win64="yes">
<File Id="MyDllNet35DllGac" Name="MyDll.dll" KeyPath="yes" Assembly=".net" Source="..\MyDll\bin\Net35\MyDll.dll" />
</Component>
</Directory>
</Directory>
Well, hope it helps someone!
As explained by Aaron Stebner,
When you use the attribute Assembly=".net" for a file in WiX, it will
create entries in the MsiAssembly and MsiAssemblyName table for this
component and mark it as a GAC component. That means that the file
will only be installed to the GAC by this component, and it will not
install to the directory that the component is a child of. That
directory will only be used by Windows Installer to stage a copy of
that file when creating an administrative install point.
So the directories for your two components must be different since the file names are the same. If nothing else is targeted for those directories, they won't even be created. I put my GAC components under a subdirectory of my install folder:
<Directory Id="tmp_to_GAC" Name="tmp_to_GAC">
You'd need one for each GAC.

WiX - How to change name of a directory after installation

Pretty simple question, suppose my app will be installed as
myApp
+-- bin
+-- lib
I'd like to rename "lib" to "plugins" after installation, how can i do that?
There is a MoveFiles Element that might help, but no idea how to use it.
EDIT:
The problem here is, in my case, source files could be installed into different paths, this scenario described in here.
The only way I can figure out is to create two component groups and install them conditionally. However, using heat to harvest same subdir twice will cause ID conflicting, so I'm thinking to use different paths(e.g. lib and another-lib), and then rename one of the path back after installation, so this question arised...
Don't. Install the files correctly up front. The way that the Windows Installer tracks things will fight you every step of the way. Just install the files in the correct folder from the beginning. Probably not the answer you wanted.
I finally wrote a C++ program to extend heat generated wxs with another directory structure. So we can decide which path to install under different situations. It worked just like changing name during installation.
Here is the wxs file patched by my program. Basically it creates another directory WEBIDR and different subdirs, then adds another component group webGroup for later reference by condition element.
You can do the same thing manually, but if there are thousands of files awaiting, and if they are frequently updating, maybe a program(or script) is a better choice.
<Fragment>
<DirectoryRef Id="INSTALLDIR">
<Directory Id="dirA5528701EE26FFBF346CCE20EE8ACE99" Name="bin">
<Component Id="cmpEBA9C2A32D81BA8646BD1A64DBB39DB1" Guid="{142C531A-C71C-4890-9318-0FC42026C8FC}">
<File Id="filDB56E052EC783676CEF361C0C5AA71F3" KeyPath="yes" Source="$(var.runDir)\bin\boost_date_time-vc100-mt-1_47.dll" />
</Component>
</Directory>
<Directory Id="dir3279BEF4E08D9A00D2F205F325F00A81" Name="modules">
<Component Id="cmpDECCAE13F8937500E4AC367A8EAC95F4" Guid="{85CC0C94-1BFB-4062-BC4E-FBF143921301}">
<File Id="filDD3B40D68D0437B18B1108FBA49ABC1B" KeyPath="yes" Source="$(var.runDir)\modules\HelloAPI.dll" />
</Component>
</Directory>
</DirectoryRef>
<DirectoryRef Id="WEBDIR">
<Component Id="webcmpEBA9C2A32D81BA8646BD1A64DBB39DB1" Guid="{fec110c5-a1a0-4b07-8a35-50f1af84001a}">
<File Id="webfilDB56E052EC783676CEF361C0C5AA71F3" KeyPath="yes" Source="$(var.runDir)\bin\boost_date_time-vc100-mt-1_47.dll" />
</Component>
<Directory Id="webdirpluginF4E08D9A00D2F205F325F00A81" Name="plugins">
<Component Id="webcmpDECCAE13F8937500E4AC367A8EAC95F4" Guid="{3ef79a47-7681-4991-9726-02db38c22f6d}">
<File Id="webfilDD3B40D68D0437B18B1108FBA49ABC1B" KeyPath="yes" Source="$(var.runDir)\modules\HelloAPI.dll" />
</Component>
</Directory>
</DirectoryRef>
</Fragment>
<Fragment>
<ComponentGroup Id="runGroup">
<ComponentRef Id="cmpEBA9C2A32D81BA8646BD1A64DBB39DB1" />
<ComponentRef Id="cmpDECCAE13F8937500E4AC367A8EAC95F4" />
</ComponentGroup>
<ComponentGroup Id="webGroup">
<ComponentRef Id="webcmpEBA9C2A32D81BA8646BD1A64DBB39DB1" />
<ComponentRef Id="webcmpDECCAE13F8937500E4AC367A8EAC95F4" />
</ComponentGroup>
</Fragment>